Beautiful Dawn
by Stacey M. Powers
Summary: Following Trojan Horst, Mary and Marshall must face up to some difficult truths...sort of.


Beautiful Dawn

By

Stacey M. Powers

Author's Note: I do not own these characters, of course, they belong to David Maples and Co. This story takes place right after Trojan Horst. I hope you enjoy it.

P.S. The section in italics at the end of the story is Mary's internal monologue.

"I'll try not to die…For you." God! How he wished he'd never said that. His chest felt like it was on fire and every breath was sheer agony. He would've liked nothing better than to give into sweet blessed oblivion…If not for that damned promise. He could hear her begging him to stay with her, to hold on. He'd never heard her sound so frightened. He was sorry to have caused her even a moment of pain or fear. She was his girl and he loved her, though he could never tell her so. Not in so many words anyway. The analogy about being the keeper of and protector of an exotic animal…Well, that was as close as he could come to telling her how he really felt. Besides, she was smart, she'd figure it out, if she hadn't already.

He felt himself being lifted. The fire became an explosion and he reached down deep to find the strength to resist the pull into the void. The void free of pain, free of suffering…But he had to resist…Had to keep feeling or he'd never see her beautiful face again. That would be the worst kind of suffering. The mask was being held over his mouth and nose. The smell of plastic and canned air filled his nostrils just as consciousness faded and he knew she'd be there when he woke.

******************

He would be hard pressed to recall which sensation reached him first. Was it the tube down his throat? The beeping of the heart monitor? The pain radiating out to every nerve in his body despite the pain killers? Or was it her? Her hand in his? The scent that was uniquely her permeating his senses? He wanted to call out her name, but all he could do was moan.

Her head shot up from where she was resting it on the bed next to their joined hands. He knew it even if, for some reason, he couldn't see it.

"Marshall?! Marshall! Can you hear me?"

He heard the urgency in her voice. He heard the raw emotion and, God help him, he heard the tears. He couldn't speak for that damn tube so he did the only thing he could do. He gathered all the strength in his pain and drug-filled body and willed it toward the hand she held in hers.

Mary felt it. Barely. She knew he heard her. It was enough. He was alive and he could respond to her. The fear left her soul and as the relief took its place she felt the tears course down her face once more. How many tears could one person cry? She'd lost count of hers since that night three days ago. She hadn't left his side. She couldn't. He was her Marshall. The one person in the world who understood her better than she understood herself and would never judge her harshly. Her tower of strength and compassion. When he fell, fear took over. As long as she had something to do, somewhere to focus her energy, she could keep it at bay. When her mother and sister got off that elevator and she realized she could do nothing for him now but wait, the fear engulfed her and the tears finally came. Hot, painful tears. She hadn't cried for a man since her father left, but she cried for Marshall then. Then and now.

****************

Over the following days and weeks she stayed with him as much as she could. She handled her caseload and his most pressing ones as well. Stan couldn't argue that she was doing her job and then some and doing it well but he worried for her even more than he worried for Marshall. Marshall's wounds were physical and would heal, already were healing. But Mary's ran so much deeper. There was a connection between them, an unbreakable bond. No one could get within twenty feet of them and not feel it. Stan knew that as soon as she finished up at the office, she went home, showered, packed a bag and went to the hospital, usually in time to eat dinner with Marshall.

The doctors had removed the tube from Marshall's throat and he was breathing on his own. He was even able to eat and drink like a normal person and walk around a bit every day. In fact, he was getting pretty antsy to get out of the hospital and go home. He knew that around the time they delivered his dinner along with his evening medications, Mary would show up. She brought him Sudoku puzzles or any one of the half dozen magazines he subscribed to. Sometimes she would bring a book and read to him. That started when he was too weak to hold the book himself and continued even as his strength returned. He recognized the books as his own copies and seeing them made him smile. He knew from Stan that Mary was working his most pressing cases and even doing his paperwork, which was so unlike her but from what Marshall could tell, Mary was very unlike herself these days. Gone were her acerbic wit and the ready insult. She was attentive to his every need and positively tender. It worried him. Some nights, when she thought he was sleeping, he would sneak a peek at her and see that , she was sitting up in the chair next to his bed working on said paperwork. She was working herself into a state of exhaustion and it had to stop.

"Hi." She slipped into his room closing the door behind her.

"Hi."

"How are you feeling?" She looked into his eyes, brushing the hair from his forehead. He needed a haircut.

"Good."

She glanced automatically at the numbers on the machines that still monitored his vitals more as a precaution now than anything else. During those darkest days; the three days before he'd regained consciousness, she'd asked one of the nurses to explain the numbers to her.

He saw her glance up at the machines as she did every day. He knew that it was habitual at this point, but it just reinforced what he needed to say to her.

"Mare, have a seat."

She slid into her chair at his side and moved her hand to hold his. "What's up?"

The old Mary would have had a biting retort. It was this acquiescence that worried him as much as anything.

"I'm doing much better now."

"Yeah, I know. It's great. I'll be they'll let you go home soon."

"Probably. But that's not really what I want to talk about."

" 'Kay. What do you want to talk about?"

"You."

"Me?"

He nodded. "You're not yourself lately and you're starting to worry me."

"Funny, I've worried me for quite some time."

There was his girl, or at least a glimpse of her. A ghost of a smile touched his lips and passed. "You don't sleep much."

"Are the two statements connected or just random observations?"

Okay, maybe his concern was unfounded…No, he'd seen what he'd seen over the past weeks. "They're connected."

She knew they were and her wit was, as usual, a defense mechanism. She couldn't let him see. Couldn't let him know. It was bad enough that she'd heard those dreaded words come out of his mouth. 'You're starting to worry me'. The last thing she'd wanted to do was worry him. She'd tried to do everything right. Tried to take care of every little detail the way she knew he would. Keep it all away from him. Make sure he could focus all his energy on getting better. She couldn't live if he left her. Even so, he'd seen through her. To the very core. That was his way. She let go of his hand and stood with her back to him as she looked blindly out the window. She couldn't let him see the panic and the pain in her eyes and she fought to keep her voice steady. "I sleep just fine."

"No. You don't." The words were simple, direct and cut into her heart.

She turned to look at him then and he was taken aback at what he saw in those eyes he loved so much. The rawness of her emotion cut into him as much as his words had done to her. "The day I knew you would make it…The day you squeezed my hand…It was the most beautiful day of my life. It was dawn…A beautiful dawn."

He didn't know what to say. He wasn't sure there was anything he could say.

"I know why you wanted to leave the Marshal Service. It was what happened at the Bevin Stables. Wasn't it?"

It was phrased as a question but they both knew the answer.

He found his blanket fascinating all of a sudden.

"Marshall."

"It was."

"Now?"

"I already told you I wouldn't leave."

"I guess that's it then?"

"It's the best I've got."

_As I sat on the chair next to Marshall's bed, we both knew that what I had done that night in the stables had changed our relationship forever. The fire it ignited was a slow burning one, but burn it would. We also knew that we had said all that would ever be said about it._

The End

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